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6 May 2014

Jayant PrasadFor a credible deterrent, constancy of doctrine in its core essentials has definite meritFor India, nuclear deterrence is defensive and a means to secure its sovereignty and security. Its strategy of assured retaliation, combined with “no first use,” provides adequate guarantee for this purpose. The strategy was unveiled concurrently with its 1998 nuclear tests, which ended the determined U.S. bid to prevent India from acquiring nuclear deterrent. Ironically, India’s nuclear weapons tests, together with the rapid expansion of its economy, transformed its global outlook and relations with the U.S. and the world.The Chinese nuclear weapons test of 1964, on the heels of the 1962 war, had always rankled in Indian minds. K. Subrahmanyam and K.R. Narayanan, at the time in the early years of their public service, advocated a matching Indian response. This did not then have resonance at the top, as India was facing the twin crises of food and finance.The P-5 states treated non-proliferation as their default foreign and security policy objective, but this was invariably trumped by national interest. India’s restraint and decision not to weaponise its nuclear capacities after the 1974 test were well known. Yet, when Pakistan accelerated its nuclear proliferation, it was not stopped in the wake of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter designated Pakistan a “frontline” state.The Chinese transferred nuclear materials and technology to Pakistan, including the weapons design and the means to deliver them — the solid fuel 300-kilometre range M-11 ballistic missiles. In a paper published in 1972, Professor Wayne Wilcox of Colombia University, then working as cultural attaché in the U.S. Embassy in London, perceptively recognised that India’s policy concerning China and Pakistan “is to hedge all bets and cover all contingencies.” India was compelled to acquire nuclear weapons to deter nuclear blackmail in its contiguity.Unlike Pakistan or Israel, India could not have a “recessed” deterrent or bomb in the basement, given India’s governance practices. Contingent factors delayed India’s nuclear weapons tests, such as the persistent external pressure on India, and arguments by internal agnostics who claimed that such testing would betray India’s long-held principles, diminish its international standing, and reduce future GDP growth rates by up to two per cent annually. In 1995 came the perpetual extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, without linking it to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. The conditions attached to the 1996 Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, which could foreclose India’s nuclear weapons option, became the final point of conviction. From then on, the question was not whether to test but when.

http://time.com/85017/ending-afghanistans-drug-addiction-is-looking-like-mission-implausible/Mark Thompson May 1, 2014 Afghan farmers tend to their poppy fields outside Jalalabad last month.Noorullah Shirzada—AFP/Getty ImagesThe Pentagon watchdog overseeing American efforts in Afghanistan says that the country’s booming opium industry is enjoying unprecedented growth that will fuel Taliban insurgents and challenge the government in KabulAs U.S. troops continue to pull out of Afghanistan, the country’s booming poppy crops and the opium they yield have reached unprecedented levels that will fuel Taliban insurgents and challenge the government in Kabul, the Pentagon watchdog overseeing Afghanistan says.“We don’t really have an effective strategy” to counter Afghanistan’s expanding narcotics industry, John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, said in an interview Thursday. “Cultivation is up, drug usage is up, production is up, seizures are down, eradication is down, corruption is up—if you look at all those indices, it’s a failure.” And the U.S. is running out of time to change course.The U.S. has spent $7.5 billion trying to eradicate Afghanistan’s poppy crop since invading the country on Oct. 7, 2001, shortly after Osama bin Laden oversaw the 9/11 attacks from his sanctuary inside the country. But since 2008, the U.S. and its allies have succeeded in eliminating less than 4% of it, according to satellite imagery. Seizures of opium are even less, accounting for about 1% of production.

A Pakistani girl shows her thumb which was marked after she received her polio vaccine in Lahore. (AP)

Geneva, May 5 (Reuters): Pakistan’s failure to stem the spread of polio triggered global emergency health measures today, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommending all residents must show proof of vaccination before they can leave the country.

The emergency measures also apply to Syria and Cameroon, which along with Pakistan are seen as posing the greatest risk of exporting the crippling virus and undermining a UN plan to eradicate it by 2018.

Pakistan is in the spotlight as the only country with endemic polio that saw cases rise last year. Its caseload rose to 93 from 58 in 2012, accounting for more than a fifth of the 417 cases globally in 2013. The virus has recently spread to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Syria, and has been found in sewage in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and greater Cairo, said WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward.

It also appeared in China two years ago.

“In the majority of these reinfected areas, the viruses circulating actually trace back to Pakistan within the last 12-18 months,” Aylward told reporters on a conference call.

Pakistan has called an emergency meeting of senior provincial and federal health officials for Wednesday to finalise how to implement the new requirements.

“The best option would be vaccinating the passengers at the airport departure where polio vaccination cards would be issued to the passengers. Human resource and vaccines would have to be worked out for the purpose,” state minister for health services Saira Afzal Tarar said in a televised broadcast.

“It would be most practical as people often have to fly in emergencies.”

Aylward said Pakistan had done “tremendous” work to restore security in Peshawar after deadly attacks on health workers had impeded the fight against polio. The race to meet a target to eradicate polio by 2018 was still feasible, he said.

History’s lessons, the immutability of geography and the politics of any region will determine how nations behave with each other. Nations cannot up and away and change location from a difficult neighbourhood to somewhere more congenial. This takes millions of years and there is no guarantee that there will be a change for the better! India Pakistan history and politics are too well known to be recounted here. It is our history that we forget ansgeography and its strategic relevance that we ignore. We suffer as a consequence. Given our relations with both Pakistan and China we are essentially a landlocked country unless we use our maritime routes extensively and look at South East Asia through Bangladesh and Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal and at West Asia through the Arabian Sea.

Access to Karakoram Pass would have given Pakistan not only extra territory but also access to Tibet via Aksai Chin held by China.

India-Pakistan relations invariably throw up Pakistani demands to discuss issues like Siachen. It is a good idea, though, to have a close look at the map of Jammu and Kashmir, including occupied Gilgit and Baltistan, Pak Occupied Kashmir and then all of Pakistan and areas of Tibet bordering India. The Siachen Glacier runs northwest to southeast from just below Shaksgam, (territory illegally ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963) to just north of the LOC. The Saltoro Ridge was occupied by Indian forces in 1984 preempting Pakistani attempts to move up to the Karakoram Pass just north of Daulet Beg Oldi. Access to Karakoram Pass would have given Pakistan not only extra territory but also access to Tibet via Aksai Chin held by China.

Forty seven years have passed since the 1965 war with Pakistan, still controversies and confusion on many issues and events persist. It is so because the official history of this war is shrouded in secrecy. The documents with the MOD, MEA, RAAW, IAF and army formations are yet to be declassified. Given this blanket blackout of authentic information, hearsay, gossip, speculation, calumny continue to be floated and controversies abound.

The one controversy that seems to have nine lives is the alleged order by General Chaudhury, the then COAS to Lt-Gen Harbaksh, Western Army Commander, to pull his troops behind Beas river

The one controversy that seems to have nine lives is the alleged order by General Chaudhury, the then COAS to Lt-Gen Harbaksh, Western Army Commander, to pull his troops behind Beas river. Inder Malhotra, in an article in a national daily, added his bit to this controversy. He records that, once General Chaudhry came to know that Pakistan has two armoured divisions, ‘he panicked and ordered Harbaksh to withdraw his troops behind Beas, and the latter refused.’ He goes on to add that it was the Maharaja of Patiala who prevailed upon Chaudhry not to insist on Harbaksh to carry out this order. However, Malhotra does not elaborate as to how a maharaja ( then a captain and ADC to Harbaksh ) came in between the army chief and his army commander concerning an order of far reaching consequences at a critical stage of the battle. He also does not seem to know that, the existence of second armoured division with Pakistan was known to army HQ well before the war.

K Subramanyam, a defence commentator of considerable repute and former director of IDSA, in an article, stated that Gen Chaudhuri had sought Prime Minister Lal Bahadhur Shastri’s permission to withdraw troops behind Beas and that the PM did not permit him to do so. This version too, is seriously flawed and contradicts one by Malhotra. If Chaudhuri first approached the PM and drew a blank, he could not have passed such an order to Harbaksh. If he had spoken to Harbaksh first and got a response that there was no need for such a move, he could not have approached the PM on this issue. A catch 22 situation!

This story of Chaudhury’s order and Harbaksh’ refusal is baseless and to support it is to display complete lack of understanding of conduct of operations.

INS Vikramaditya a $2.33 billion refurbished aircraft carrier was acquired recently from Russia in November 2013 and is based at Karwar Naval Base on India’s Western Sea Board. This 44,500 ton Kiev Class aircraft carrier having a range of 7000 nautical miles is the biggest ever warship inducted in the Indian Navy and packs a formidable punch carrying 24x MIG-29 supersonic fighter aircrafts having a range of 1300 Km and 10x Kamov-31/Kamov-28 anti submarine warfare and maritime surveillance helicopters. INS Vikramaditya, besides providing a strategic capability to the IN, meets the IN’s requirements of having a viable carrier battle group in a true sense and is ideal for military diplomacy and power projection roles.

INS Vikramaditya led carrier battle group besides making port calls in this region, must conduct quadrilateral joint naval exercises involving Australian, Indian, Japanese and South Korean navies and also have joint naval exercises with the navies of ASEAN States.

The IN besides its primary war time role, like all other navies has traditionally been employed for military diplomacy. Basically military diplomacy is the use of military in diplomacy as a tool of the nation’s foreign policy and is the soft usage of hard power. As part of the military diplomacy the tasks which are generally undertaken by the Navy are goodwill visits by warships by making port calls in friendly foreign countries and participating in joint naval exercises. The other peace time operational deployments being undertaken by the navies are maintaining order at sea, security of SLOCs, anti piracy operations, deterrent patrols, disaster relief, rendering humanitarian assistance, evacuation of own diaspora in times of distress and providing military assistance to friendly regimes in a crisis situation.

India’s areas of strategic and maritime influence and interest range from the Eastern Coast of Africa through the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), Malacca Straits, South and East China Seas, Eastern Pacific Ocean and up to the Southern Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific Region comprises the area of Malacca Strait and East up to Japan-New Zealand. This region is fast emerging as the world’s new centre of gravity, its importance is further enhanced due to the heavy volume of merchant marine traffic flowing through this area, there are large trade and economic interests for India and it is part of India’s Look East Policy; and stability in the region is essential for the security of SLOCs. The IOR is an area of concern for India as this region plays a key role in determining India’s policy perceptions and is an important element in her security calculus. The world’s busiest trading routes pass through the Indian Ocean as 35% of global trade takes place involving 100,000 ships transiting the sea lanes of the region annually. India’s interests in the IOR are energy security, ensuring influence/leverage in OIC, maintaining strong strategic ties with Iran as it provides land access to Afghanistan and CAR and safety interests of the large Indian diaspora in the Middle East. Thus there is a need for India to ensure the stability of the region from non conventional threats, ensure security of the SLOCs, be part of anti piracy operations and maintain order at sea. India’s initiative in this regard has been the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) organised in February 2008 which provides the forum for maritime confidence building measures and capacity building to address various asymmetric and transnational threats in the IOR. Since 2008 IONS is being held biennially.

Two low-intensity improvised explosive devices (IED) exploded in two adjacent sleeper coaches of the Bangalore – Guwahati tri-weekly super fast express just as the train streamed into the Chennai Central station around 7.15 AM on May 1.

One young woman was killed and 14 others were wounded in the explosions. The city waking up to May Day holiday was stunned. And national media fed on increasingly stale diet of election news went hammer and tongs to dissect it.

But the question, who planted the bombs in the train, still remains unanswered.

The Chennai police (CB CID) assisted by a NSG team is investigating the blasts. Preliminary investigation has revealed that ammonium nitrate, favoured by terrorists because it is commonly available as a chemical fertiliser was probably used with a timer device in the IEDs. The media called the IEDs a professional job, leaving no doubt it was a terrorist handiwork. However, so far no terrorist organisation has laid claim to the heinous act.

As the train started in Bangalore, police are also looking for leads at their end. The police both at Chennai and Bangalore are also examining CCTV footages of the day recorded in the two stations for possible clues.

The train was running 45 minutes late and that probably saved more lives and damage to the train. Had it been running on time the train would have neared Nellore where Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial aspirant, was addressing an election rally on that day! Already a security alert has been issued to Southern States regarding possible terrorist attack on the Gujarat Chief Minister during his electioneering in South India. According to railway sources, security arrangements in the two stations in Chennai were tightened after the alert was received.

The train was headed for Guwahati, capital of not only Assam state but Northeast militancy as well. The train would have passed through parts of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa that were hunting grounds of Maoists and other Left Wing Extremist (LWE) groups. These complications have generated a lot of speculations about the terrorist body responsible for planting the bombs.

Despite some spectacular ambushes of paramilitary forces by Maoists, during the run up to the general elections their activities have been substantively restricted thanks to the tight security arrangements beefed up by additional forces. Same is the case in the Northeast where general elections have been conducted peacefully. Moreover, North-eastern militant groups which are ethno-centric rarely operate outside their beat. Considering this, it is reasonable to remove both the LWE and Northeast insurgents from the list of suspected perpetrators. And that leaves only Jihadi terrorist groups as the suspects.

In this context, the arrest of a Sri Lankan national Mohammed Zakir Hussain in Chennai in a joint operation by Central intelligence and state police two days before the blast is of special interest. According to media reports, Hussain is said to have confessed to the police of working for Pakistani intelligence. He was on an assignment to recruit people for terrorist activities in Southern states and circulate fake Indian currency. Based on the information provided by him the Tamil Nadu Q Branch Police have arrested two of his associates suspected of working for the Pakistan ISI.

Once the United States and NATO forces leave the Afghanistan– Pakistan region, the ongoing conflict in the region is likely to be exacerbated. The Taliban is undefeated and waiting to reestablish the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The Chinese offensive posture in border areas and the Indian defensive posture have created a dangerous situation for Indian troops on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). There is a clear military imbalance on the India-China border that needs to be set right without delay.

The increasing influence of India and its military support to Karzai’s regime raises serious apprehensions in the minds of Pakistani military leaders who consider it an extended regional threat.

Cyber wars pose a serious challenge to India’s national security as our traditional adversaries have an ability to cause web defacements and intrude into systems related to sensitive national security issues.

AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN REGION

The clash between the Afghan government and the Taliban is likely to intensify once the full responsibility of insurgency operations is taken over by Afghan National Security forces (ANSF). Pakistan’s hidden role in Afghanistan and proxy war against the Afghan government will tilt the balance in favour of the Taliban and the ANSF may not be able to defend Kabul in these circumstances without external assistance. In this context, Pakistan is greatly concerned about the growing cooperation between India and Afghanistan in the wake of American withdrawal.

Much to the discomfort of Pakistan, Hamid Karzai had permitted India to open consulates in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat and Mazar-e- Sharif, creating the fear in Pakistan that India’s influence will spread in these areas and will come in the way of its ambition of establishing the Taliban regime in Kabul.

The increasing influence of India and its military support to Karzai’s regime raises serious apprehensions in the minds of Pakistani military leaders who consider it an extended regional threat. India’s increasing footfall in Afghanistan is raising Pakistan’s fear of regional envelopment and revival of the idea of Pashtunistan, which Pakistan considers an existential threat.

The Indian nuclear doctrine clearly articulates a no first use strategy. This implies that India would not initiate a nuclear attack but would retaliate when subjected to one. This apparent ‘loss of initiative’ causes great angst, especially in some quarters of the military and the strategic community. The NFU is criticized for leaving India open to a nuclear strike and projecting the country as weak and passive. This, however, is a complete misreading of the NFU strategy.

Pakistan seeks to deter through a first use strategy. It projects a low nuclear threshold which suggests that it would use nuclear weapons if faced with a major conventional onslaught from India. This policy of brinkmanship raises uncertainty and cost of escalation for India, thereby forcing a certain caution on New Delhi. This has led to the impression that Pakistan’s first use deterrence doctrine has been more effective.

Such arguments, however, tend to overlook the actual incredibility of a first use strategy when it faces an adversary that has a secure second strike capability because then retaliation will have to be suffered too. In a nuclear dyad, first use is not just about one’s own use, but has to factor in a nuclear response too. Is it then useful, and more importantly, credible to threaten first use of nuclear weapons? Can/should Pakistan’s first use threat be taken seriously as long as India has the capability and resolve to inflict assured, punitive retaliation?

To take the analysis further, let’s examine two situations that are often considered worthy of nuclear first use. The first shows the dilemma of Pakistan and the second illustrates the dilemma India could face if it too chose to have a first use. In the first case, it is argued that if Pakistan were to face the prospect of conventional defeat, it would be left with no option but to use nuclear weapons. But, even in such a situation how does the country gain by using this weapon because once it has done so, its fate shifts from being defeated-now-but-living-to-fight-another-day to one of severe damage/annihilation. Jonathan Schell asked, “how can it make sense to “save” one’s country by blowing it to pieces? And what logic is there in staving off a limited defeat by bringing on unlimited, eternal defeat?” The choice rests with the first user.

Paying tribute in Karachi to Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who was shot and injured.CreditShakil Adil/Associated Press

Karachi, Pakistan — Pakistan’s media is in upheaval these days. But it’s not because of the stuttering “talks” between the government and militant groups, who have publicly vowed to target journalists.

The current upheaval began with the attempted assassination in Karachi on April 19 of Hamid Mir, arguably Pakistan’s most recognizable talk show host and journalist. Mr. Mir survived despite taking six bullets. The real furor came not in reaction to the attack but to Mr. Mir’s employer — Geo Television — which broadcast Mr. Mir’s distressed brother’s statement accusing the country’s premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, of being behind the attempted murder.

Most Pakistanis were stunned by these blunt accusations. Even with stronger proof, charges against the I.S.I. or serving military officers are unheard of in a country that has spent half of its existence under military rule and where the intelligence services still exert a powerful and often-intimidating influence.

There have been allegations of military complicity in the targeting of journalists before — most notably in the killings of Hayatullah Khan in 2006, Syed Saleem Shahzad in 2011 and Abdul Razzak Baloch in 2013 — but the difference this time was that the accusations were being made by family members of a man who had survived and could corroborate them.

The military’s spokesperson, while sympathizing with the Mir family’s distress, termed the allegations “emotional” and Geo’s conduct in continuing to air them, “irresponsible.” But far more remarkable was the conduct of some of Geo’s competitors. Attempting to be more loyal than the king, they jumped into the fray, criticizing Geo for its “lack of editorial control” and “flouting of journalistic ethics” in allowing the accusations to be broadcast.

In normal circumstances, Pakistan’s boisterous TV channels are loath to even mention competitors’ names. But efforts to curry favor with the military combined with commercial interests and petty personal issues between owners — Geo News is three times as popular as its closest competitor and attracts up to 70 percent of advertising revenue on news channels — seem to have trumped all previous restraint.

The vitriolic attacks on Geo and its parent company, the Jang Group, have increased with each passing day. One competitor devoted all its talk shows and 20 minutes of every hourly news bulletin for several days to Geo’s faults. Despite the veneer of discussing journalistic ethics, the underlying message was that accusations against a military agency were unacceptable.

Then the military moved in for the real kill. It petitioned Pakistan’s media regulators to ban Geo for defaming the military as well as its associated newspapers, Jang and The News. It also called for unprecedented criminal prosecution of Geo’s owners and journalists.

Cable operators were informally pressured to take Geo off the air. Demonstrations, often by militant religious parties, suddenly began springing up all over Pakistan in support of the I.S.I. and against Geo — probably the first time anyone in the world has rallied to defend an intelligence agency. Now even some mainstream political parties, including the one led by former cricket star Imran Khan, have raised the banner against Geo.

What is the greatest nuclear danger facing the world today? Judging by the media’s coverage, one would likely say Iran (recently reported to have started [1] plutonium production) or North Korea (reportedly planning foradditional nuclear tests [2] this year). But the happy catch is that, at least for the time being, neither country seems capable of successfully launching a nuclear missile. North Korea’s December rocket launch and February nuclear test show the country may be closer to producing a deliverable nuke than previously believed, but Pyongyang has yet to demonstrate the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and mount it on a launch-ready missile. And Iran, for all the consternation they have caused the international community, is still several steps away from turning its 20% enriched uranium into a nuclear bomb.

So if a nuclear war breaks out tomorrow, it won’t be on account of North Korea or Iran. According to many, the most precarious place in the world is not the Korean Peninsula or the Middle East but the Asian Subcontinent, home to one of the most intense—and now nuclear-armed—regional rivalries. Bruce Riedel discussed the dangers of the India-Pakistan conflict Tuesday at the Brooking Institution in a launch event [3] for his new book [4] Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan to the Brink and Back.

Pictures of Egyptian army chief and presidential candidate Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, on a computer screen. (Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

While the world’s attention has been riveted on Ukraine and what move an emboldened Vladimir Putin will make next, diverse threats to democracy have intensified on other fronts as well. The story is not new. According to Freedom House, 2013 was the eighth consecutive year in which more countries experienced declines in political rights or civil liberties than improvements. Since 2005, democracy has ceased its decades-long expansion, leveling off at about 60 percent of all independent states. And since the military coup in Pakistan in 1999, the rate of democratic breakdowns has accelerated, with about one in every five democracies failing.

The downfall of several Arab autocracies in 2011 seemed to augur a new burst of democratic progress, but that progress has not materialized. While Tunisia has emerged as the first Arab democracy in 40 years, Egypt is more repressive now than at any time in the last decade of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. Since the end of 2010, more Arab countries have regressed in freedom and political pluralism than have advanced.Since the late 1990s, democracy has broken down in Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan,Thailand, and Kenya, and elsewhere.

The democratic recession we’re witnessing has been particularly visible in big “swing states”—the non-Western countries with the largest populations and economies. Since the late 1990s, democracy has broken down in Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Kenya. The Philippines is the one relative bright spot in the group today, with a democratically elected president, Benigno Aquino, committed to serious governance reforms. Russia has become not just a venal and despotic state, but a neo-imperial menace to its neighbors as well. Nigeria has reverted back to tragic levels of political kleptocracy and fraud, feeding political polarization, ethnic resentment, citizen alienation, and an increasingly virulent Islamic terrorist movement in the north. The grip of “Bolivarian socialism” has weakened in Venezuela as governance has deteriorated, violence has exploded, and the opposition has unified behind a liberal challenger first to Hugo Chávez and then to his designated successor. But it will be a pyrrhic victory for democrats if the Chavista regime falls and social order collapses alongside it.

Obama's April visit to East Asia was in many respects to "make up" for the cancellation of an earlier trip scheduled for October 2013, where he was to attend APEC, ASEAN, and East Asia Summit meetings. Given the consternation that the cancellation evoked across the region, the fact that Obama so quickly rescheduled his trip—his sixth to the region as president—was itself a huge boost for a region hankering for clear signs of Washington's commitment.

The objective of reassuring security partners was for the most part met through several key statements and initiatives. Despite their reportedly cool personal relationship, Obama's reaffirmation in Tokyo that the Senkaku islands—subject of acrimonious dispute between Japan and China—are covered under the U.S.-Japan Alliance brought a discernibly warm smile to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's face. To be sure, both his secretaries of state had previously already stated this. Nevertheless, the fact that President Obama saw fit to reiterate it in Tokyo must surely have been a welcomed boost for Japan. His assurances to South Korea in relation to North Korean aggression were equally welcomed. In Manila, Obama put his stamp on a ten-year, U.S.-Philippine military pact that would provide much needed deterrence capability for a government at the receiving end of Chinese assertiveness over competing South China Sea claims. With three of his four host governments having suffered humanitarian tragedies in recent months, the visit proved an opportune time for President Obama to reinforce longstanding American commitment to provide humanitarian relief in disasters.

As long as Syrian President Bashir al-Assad is allowed to stay, Syria’s future is sectarian division between Alawites/Shia and Sunni/Kurds. Christians will have no future in Syria. And once the division is de factorecognized by the warring factions (which is beginning to happen already), al Qaida and Sunni moderates (including the Kurds) will square off and start killing each other.

Syrian provinces in the north, currently under Sunni or Kurdish control and largely purged of Alawites, are unlikely ever to allow Alawite governors back, even if Assad prevails (meaning ‘survives’) militarily and diplomatically. Likewise, Alawite strongholds will likely never surrender their heavy weapons, air defenses, ballistic missiles or asymmetrical weapons to Sunni irregulars or allow themselves to be governed by Sunnis (for fear of retribution for decades of Alawite suppression of the Sunnis).

Both the Free Syrian Army -- along with al Qaida (AQ) and Salafist irregular forces -- and the Assad regime have long-war military strategies:

The FSA/AQ/Salafists thinks that demography (their superior numbers) over time will allow the ‘plinking’ of the Assad military, which cannot re-constitute itself with enough new (Alawite) recruits over the long term, and therefore will someday fall (or turn on Assad);

The Assad regime and Iran think that controlling the cities and the strategic ports and access to Lebanon will assure that the Kurds, Salafists, al Qaida and the Sunni-controlled areas of the countryside will collapse from their own mismanagement, exhaustion and the starvation of resources and access.

Either way, the West loses. And without Western involvement to pressure Assad to leave Syria, the Assad regime’s long-war strategy has today the upper hand.

Three civil war outcomes are now likely, all very bad for the United States, all likely to continue some form of sectarian/geographic division of Syria:

Assad and Iran will continue and remain in de jure control of all of Syria (and de facto control of the more important southwestern third of Syria), maintaining a forward base/safe haven for Iran and Hezbollah, remaining a threat to Israel and an adversary of the West. Assad will likely squirrel away and hide at least some of his chemical weapons.

The opposition will prevail, shove the Alawites into a geographic corner and feel nothing but ingratitude and hostility toward the West and the United States in particular for abandoning them, fueling the narrative that the West is at war with Islam and indifferent to Muslim suffering. Western influence with the new government will be small to nil.

The civil war and division will continue for years.

We Can’t Just Vote ‘Present’

Syria has frozen this administration intellectually and strategically. The President’s passivity to date has helped Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad survive a revolution he was going to lose to moderate Sunnis. The delay has allowed the rise of the religious fanatics.

Back to basics like water and power. Taking Ukrainian territory is one thing, holding on to it is quite another.

As violence rages in Odessa and eastern Ukraine, with buildings burning, helicopters downed, urban combat and hostage taking, chaos may soon solidify into a concerted Russian military campaign. But if Moscow's tanks and thousands of troops cross Ukraine’s eastern border in the regions of Slovyansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv, don’t expect them to roll like thunder toward Kiev. Their first move will likely be a quick drive through Zaporizhia and Kherson toward… Crimea. There are several reasons for this: one obvious one being that military assets in Kremlin-annexed Crimea currently are inaccessible to Russia by land. But there is another more basic reason: resources.

Crimea may be formally and theoretically part of Russia at this point, but it still relies on the Ukraine mainland for the most basic of necessities such as water and electricity. Thus Russian forces may soon resort to an armed southern invasion to take control of the pipelines that feed Crimea, and once that bridge is crossed, as it were, the military campaign could stretch all the way to Transnistria, the breakaway eastern province of Moldova.

The amount of the water currently flowing through the North Crimea Channel into the peninsula is less than 60 percent of what it was before the Russian occupation. Crimea relies on the Ukrainian mainland for 80 percent of its local water supply, and much of Crimea is farmland. A lack of water could influence dramatically this year’s harvest and could potentially render the Crimean peninsula an agricultural wasteland. So much for the dreams of security and prosperity that were part of Moscow’s psy-ops. As millions learned under the Soviets, propaganda doesn’t grow beans.

The government in Kiev says that Crimea is not paying for the water the peninsula is consuming and that the peninsula has accrued a debt of nearly $200,000. (This echoes, of course, Moscow’s insistence that Ukraine pay more for Russian gas.) Kiev calls this “the practice of unauthorized water intake” or to put it simply, Crimea is stealing our water: more than four million cubic meters worth. Self-declared Russo-Crimean authorities, on the other hand, claim that Kiev’s price of $1 USD for a cubic meter is too expensive.

50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons Today

Their number and role in U.S. security have been reduced, but nuclear weapons still provide important security benefits to the United States and its allies. While the prospects for moving to lower levels than those in New START now appear limited, the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative at Brookings put together an updated list of "50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons," originally published in 1998.

1.2

Yield (in megatons) of the B83 nuclear weapon, which is the largest nuclear weapon currently in the U.S. stockpile.

1.24

Shortest range (in miles) of a U.S. nuclear shell. Known as the “Davy Crockett,” the W54 weapon, a small nuclear warhead with a weight of 51 pounds, was fired by a recoilless gun mounted on a jeep.

Number of U.S. nuclear weapons used in wartime, against Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.Show answer»

2

Number of Mark 39 hydrogen bombs that were accidently released in 1961 from a U.S. Air Force B-52 that broke up in midair over Goldsboro, North Carolina. Neither bomb detonated, but each had a yield of 3.8 megatons; the detonation of one would have been some 260 times more powerful than the weapon dropped on Hiroshima.

5

Number of states that are home to Minuteman III missile launch sites (Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming).

5

Number of formally recognized nuclear weapons states under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China.

5

Number of countries believed to host U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.[1]

7

Number of nuclear weapon types in the current U.S. arsenal: W76 and W88 warheads for submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs); W78 and W87 warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); W80 warheads for the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM); and B61 (multiple variants) and B83 gravity bombs. Under the “3+2” plan, it is proposed over time to reduce the warhead types to three warheads for ballistic missiles, one gravity bomb (B61) and one warhead for ACLMs.

The world ... regards the United States as a 'pariah state' and 'the greatest threat to world peace,' with no competitor even close in the polls. But what does the world know?

The current Ukraine crisis is serious and threatening, so much so that some commentators even compare it to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

Columnist Thanassis Cambanis summarizes the core issue succinctly in The Boston Globe: “[President Vladimir V.] Putin's annexation of the Crimea is a break in the order that America and its allies have come to rely on since the end of the Cold War—namely, one in which major powers only intervene militarily when they have an international consensus on their side, or failing that, when they're not crossing a rival power's red lines.”

This era's most extreme international crime, the United States-United Kingdom invasion of Iraq, was therefore not a break in world order—because, after failing to gain international support, the aggressors didn't cross Russian or Chinese red lines.

In contrast, Putin's takeover of the Crimea and his ambitions in Ukraine cross American red lines.

Therefore “Obama is focused on isolating Putin's Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world, limiting its expansionist ambitions in its own neighborhood and effectively making it a pariah state,” Peter Baker reports inThe New York Times.

American red lines, in short, are firmly placed at Russia's borders. Therefore Russian ambitions “in its own neighborhood” violate world order and create crises.

The point generalizes. Other countries are sometimes allowed to have red lines—at their borders (where the United States' red lines are also located). But not Iraq, for example. Or Iran, which the U.S. continually threatens with attack (“no options are off the table”).

Crimea’s secession and subsequent annexation begs many questions. An overlooked but important one is: Will the next “Crimea” occur inside NATO and the European Union? If so, an interesting candidate isKárpátalja, a region in which some 162,000 ethnic Hungarians[2] live along Ukraine's western frontier with Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary.

KINSMEN IN THE NEAR-ABROAD

On 18 March, Vladimir Putin affirmed that Russians:

“…expected Ukraine to remain our good neighbor. We hoped that Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine, especially its southeast and Crimea, would live in a friendly, democratic and civilized state that would protect their rights in line with the norms of international law. However, this is not how the situation developed. Time and time again, attempts were made to deprive Russians of their historical memory, even of their language and to subject them to forced assimilation.”[3]

The Soviet Union’s dissolution transformed 25 million ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation into the new Russian diaspora[4] and posed a challenge to new states throughout Russia’s near-abroad.[5] Emerging in its aftermath, Russian nationalists like Nashi[6] (“Ours”) claimed the land “our people” live on should be “ours.” Other voices including Den (“The Day”) went so far as to advocate Russian military intervention to “defend” Russian speakers.

Conflicts between national loyalties on the one hand, and mutually exclusive identities on the other, are not new. Amidst the 18th century emergence of Malorossiya or “Little Russia” identity, some argued multiple loyalties and identities had to be replaced by mutually-exclusive ones: “[O]ne could not be a Russian from Little Russia…one had to be either a Russian or a Ukrainian.”[7] As the sociologist Max Weber saw it, a “community of memories” often has “deeper impact than the ties of merely cultural, linguistic or ethnic community” and is “the ultimately decisive element of ‘national consciousness’.”[8]

Obama's April visit to East Asia was in many respects to "make up" for the cancellation of an earlier trip scheduled for October 2013, where he was to attend APEC, ASEAN, and East Asia Summit meetings. Given the consternation that the cancellation evoked across the region, the fact that Obama so quickly rescheduled his trip—his sixth to the region as president—was itself a huge boost for a region hankering for clear signs of Washington's commitment.

The objective of reassuring security partners was for the most part met through several key statements and initiatives. Despite their reportedly cool personal relationship, Obama's reaffirmation in Tokyo that the Senkaku islands—subject of acrimonious dispute between Japan and China—are covered under the U.S.-Japan Alliance brought a discernibly warm smile to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's face. To be sure, both his secretaries of state had previously already stated this. Nevertheless, the fact that President Obama saw fit to reiterate it in Tokyo must surely have been a welcomed boost for Japan. His assurances to South Korea in relation to North Korean aggression were equally welcomed. In Manila, Obama put his stamp on a ten-year, U.S.-Philippine military pact [5] that would provide much needed deterrence capability for a government at the receiving end of Chinese assertiveness over competing South China Sea claims [6]. With three of his four host governments having suffered humanitarian tragedies in recent months, the visit proved an opportune time for President Obama to reinforce longstanding American commitment to provide humanitarian relief in disasters.

By the time U.S. and Iranian negotiators meet again in May, we may be just two months away from a potential resolution to the decade-long nuclear dispute [4]. While the toughest issues remain on the horizon, many (including none other than David Petraeus) have sounded a note of confidence that there will be a final agreement by July 20.

If so, we better prepare for what happens after a deal. As difficult as these negotiations have been and will continue to be in the weeks ahead, things will not get any easier when the parties return home to sell a final agreement to their respective hardliners.

The Sanctions Problem

Here in the United States, the ‘sell’ will be doubly difficult, as it is not just the rhetorical angst of the Iran-hawks on Capitol Hill that will need to be countered, but also the series of laws enacted by Congress that limit the President’s power to provide Iran necessary sanctions relief for a deal.

According to the Joint Plan of Action [5] agreed to in November, the P5+1 will begin lifting all nuclear-related sanctions in a final deal in return for strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program. However, under U.S. law, the President only has discretion to issue time-limited waivers for the sanctions and little power to actually lift the sanctions altogether.

Without an act of Congress, the President will have to issue a waiver every four-to-six months in order to provide sanctions relief—providing opponents of a deal a regular schedule of opportunities to re-litigate the merits of a deal and sabotage the agreement. While this juggling-act might be sustainable so long as President Obama resides in office, his successor’s willingness to do so is far from certain. Would anybody expect a President Ted Cruz to continue issuing Iran sanctions waivers?

This kind of uncertainty means that U.S. negotiators have less to offer Iran and can thus demand less in return, leading to a weaker deal that will be criticized by hardliners who will bemoan their side’s limited gains and inflate the concessions their negotiators granted.

Furthermore, limiting the President’s power to terminate the sanctions jeopardizes U.S. compliance with a final agreement and, in turn, undermines the United States’ ability to secure Iran’s sustained adherence. If there are questions about U.S. ability to implement sanctions relief under a final deal, Iran will act as any rational actor and hedge its bets. And once both sides start to play this game, the nuclear deal that the parties have worked so hard to forge will erode as the mistrust that has long plagued U.S.-Iranian relations reasserts itself.

What’s the Fix?

U.S. and Iranian negotiators have sought to structure a final deal in such a way as to mitigate the mistrust as far as feasible, which is why a final deal will involve a “reciprocal, step-by-step process”—where a schedule outlines the timeline by which the P5+1 will lift nuclear-related sanctions in return for Iran’s verifiable implementation of limits on its nuclear program.